"One moment," Bloodson said, as he stepped forward; "this man is a wretched adventurer, who has no right to wear the gown he has so long dishonoured. I ask that it be stripped off him, before he is tried."
"Why waste time in accusing me, and making this mockery of justice?" Fray Ambrosio ironically replied. "All you who try us are as criminal as we are. You are assassins; for you usurp, without any right, functions that do not belong to you. This time you act justly, by chance: a thousand other times, awed by the populace that surrounds you, you condemn innocent men. If you wish to know my crimes, I will tell you them. That man is right. I am no monk—never was one. I began by debauchery; I finished in crime. As an accomplice of Red Cedar, I fired farms, whose inhabitants I burned or assassinated, in order to plunder them afterwards. I have been, still with Red Cedar, a scalp hunter. I helped to carry off that girl. What more? I killed that gambusino's brother in order to obtain the secret of a placer. Do you want any more? Imagine the most atrocious and hideous crimes, and I have committed them all. Now pronounce and carry out your sentence, for you will not succeed in making me utter another word. I despise you. You are cowards."
After uttering these odious words with revolting cynicism, the wretch looked impudently round the audience.
"You are sentenced," Valentine said, after a consultation, "to be scalped, hung up by the arms, seasoned with honey, and remain hanging till the flies and birds have devoured you."
On hearing this terrible sentence, the bandit could not repress a start of terror, while the people frenziedly applauded this severe sentence.
"Now the sentence will be carried out," Valentine said.
"One moment," Unicorn exclaimed, as he sprang up, and stood before the judges; "as regards Red Cedar, the law has not been followed: does it not say, 'eye for eye, and tooth for tooth?'"
"Yes, yes!" the Indians and trappers shouted. Struck by an ominous presentiment, Red Cedar trembled.
"Yes," Bloodson said, in a hollow voice, "Red Cedar killed Doña Clara, Don Miguel's daughter—his daughter Ellen must die."
The judges themselves recoiled in horror, and Red Cedar uttered a terrible howl. Ellen alone did not tremble.